The Good Shepherd
“The Lord is my Boepberd, I shall not want.” — Psalm, -zinM. 1.
Does not this sound jnsL like poetry oi’ like singing? If you read the entire psahu through, it is written in such easy prose, that though it is not translated into, meter, as it should have been, it reads just like it. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters; Tie restoreth my soul, and leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” It sounds like music for this, among other reasons — because it came from David’s heart. That wnich Cometh fi-om the heart always hath melody in it. When men speak of what they do know, and testify of what they have seen from the depths of their souls, they si)eak Axdth what we call eloquence; for the meaning of the word eloquence is — speaking out of, speaking from the soul. Thus David spake of what he knew, what he had verified all his life long, and this rendered him truly eloquent. As “truth is stranger than fiction,” so the truth that David spake is more sweet than even fancy could have sported and it hath more beauty than even the. dream of the enthusiast could have pictured. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” How naturally it seems to strike on the ear as uttered by David, who had himself been a shepherd boy! He remembers how he had led his flock by the waters of Jordan in the warm summer, how ho had made them lie down in shady nooks by the side of the river; how on sultry days he had led them on the high hills that they might feel the cool air; and how when the winter get in he had led them into the valleys that they might be hidden from the stormy blast; well could he remember the
76 THE G001> SnEl’nKIiD.
tender care Adth which he protected the lambs, and carried them; and how he had tended the wounded of the liock. And now, appropriating to himself the familiar figure of a sheep, he says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I will try to yreach experimentally of this matter to-night, and I wonder how many of you will be able to follow the lsahnist with me while I attempt to do so?
First of all, theee are some preliminaries before a man can say this; it is absolutely necessary he should fuel himself to be like a sheep by nature; for he can not know that God ia his shepherd, unless he feels in himself that he has the nature of a sheep. Secondly, there is a sweet assurance — a man must have had some testimony of Divine care and goodness in the past, otherwise he can not appropriate to himself this verse, “The Lord is ray shepherd.” And thirdly, tueee is a ugly CONEIDENCE. 1 woudcr how many there are hei-e who can place all the future in the hand of God, and can join with the last sentence, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want;” if all the earth does, I shall not want.
L First, then, we say there is a certain confession necessary before a man can join in these words; we must feel that there is something in us which is akin to the sheep; we must acknowledge that in some measure we exactly resemble it, or else we can not call God our shepherd.
Well, I think the first apprehension we shall have, if the Lord has brought us into this condition, is this — we shall be conscious of our ovm folly loe shall feel hoio unwise toe always are. A sheep is one of the most unwise of creatures. It will go anywhere except in the right direction; it will leave a fat pasture to wander into a barren one; it ^<’ill find out many ways but not the right way; it would wander through a wood, and find its way through ravines into the wolf’s jaws, but never by its wariness turn away from the wolf; it could wander near his den, but it would not instinctively turn aside from the jjlace of danger; it knoweth how to go astray, but it knoweth not bow to come home again. The sheep is foolish. Left to itself, it would not know in what pasture to feed in summer, or whither to retire in winter
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Clave we ever been brought to feel that in matters of providence, as well as in things of grace, we are truly and entirely foolish? Methinks, no man can trust providence till he distrusts himself; and none can say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” until he has given up every idle notion that he can control iiimsclf, or manage his own interests. Alas! we are most of us wise above that which is written, and we are too vain to acknowledge the wisdom of God. In our self-esteem we fancy our reason can rule our purposes and wo never doubt our own power to accomplish our own intentions, and then, by a little manoeuvring, we think to extricate ourselves from the difficulty. Cop.ld we steer in such a direction as we have y)lanned, sve entertain not a doubt but we shall avoid at once the Scylla and the Charybdis, and have fair sailing all our life long. And too often, alas! we touch tht. forbidden thing, under the vain notion that the end will justify the means if we should be able entirely to clear our way. O belove<l! surely it wants but little teaching in the school of grace to make out that we ourselves are fools. True wisdom is sure to set folly in a strong light. I have heard of a young man who went to college; and when he had been there ono year, his parent said to him, “^yhat do you know? Do you know more than when you went?” “Oh! yes,” said he, “I do.” Then he went the second year, and was asked the same question — ‘• Do you know more than when you went?” “Oh! no,” said he, “I know a great deal less.” “Well,” said the father, “you are getting on.” Then he went the third year, and was asked the same question — “What do you know now ‘?” “Oh!” said he, “I don’t think I know anything.” “That is right,” said the father; “you have now learnt to profit, since you say you know nothing.” He who is convinced that ho knows nothing of himself as he ought to know, gives up steering his ship, and lets God put his band on the rudder. He lays aside his ovm wisdom, and cries, “O God! my little wisdom is cast at thy feet; my little judgment is given to thee. Such as it is, I surrcudei it; I am prejiared to renounce it, for it hath caused me many an ill, and many a tear of regret, that I should have followed my own devices, but henceforth I will delight in thy statutes. ‘As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden look unto the hand of her mistress, even so shall mine eyes ■svait upon the Lord ray God.’ I will not trust in horses, t or in chariots; but the name of the God of Jacob shall bo r.iy refuge. Too long, alas! have I sought my o’rti pleasure, and labored to do everything for my own gratification. Now would I ask, 0 Lord, thy help, that I may seek first the king dom of God, and his glory, and leave all the rest to thee.” Do you, O my friends, feel persuaded that you are foolish? Have you been brought to confess the sheepishness of your nature? Or are you flattering your hearts with the fond conceit that you are wise? If so, you are fools. But if brought to see yourselves like Agur when he said, “I aiu more bi-utish than any man, and have not the understandhig of a man,” then even Solomon might pronounce thee Avise, And if thou art thus brought to confess, “I am a silly sheep,” I hope thou wilt be able to say, “The Lord is my she]^/herd, I can not have any other, I want none other: he is enough for me.”
Again, a sheep is not only a foolish but a dependent creature. The sheep, at least in its domesticated state, as we know it, must ever be dependent. If we should take a horse, we might turn him loose upon the prairie, and there he should find sufficient scope for his powers; and, years after, we might see him in no worse condition than that in which we left him. Even the ox might thus be treated and still be able to provide for itself. But as for the silly sheep, set it alone in the wilderness, let it pursue its own coui-se unheeded, and what would be its fate? Presently, if it did not wander into places where it would be starved, it would ultimately come to ruin, for assuredly some wild beast would lay hold upon it, and it hath no means of defence for itself. Beloved, have we been brought to feel that we have of ourselves no nueans of subsistence, and no power of defence against* our foes? Do wf per(reive the necessity for our dependence upon God? If so, then we have learnt another part of the great lessen, that the Lord is our shepherd. Some of us have yet this lesson to learn, Vlm would we cater for ourselves and carve for our
THE GOOD SlIKrilKUD. 79
selves; but, as thegoofl old Puritan says, “Nociiikl of God ever carves for himself without cutting his lingers.” We sometimes fancy that we can do a little. Ay, ay! but Ave shall have that conceit taken from us very soon. If we indeed b« God’s people, he will bring us to depend absolutely upon him, day by day. He will make us pray that prayer, “(tIvc us this day our daily bread;” that we may make this acknowledgment that he openeth his hand and giveth us our meat in due season. Sweet is the meal that we eat, as it were, out of his hand. Yet some will rebel against this dependence as very humiliating. Men like to vaunt their independence. Nothing is more respectable in their eyes than to Uve in independent circumstances. But it is no use for us to talk of being independent; we never can be. I remember a dear Christian man who prayed very sweetly on each Sunday morning at a certain prayer-meeting that I once attended “O Lord, we are independent creatures upon thee.” Except in such a sense as that, I never knew any independence worth having. Of course he put the syllable “in” too much. He meant “we are f?ependent creatures,” and “we are dependent creatures upon thee.” So we must be. We cannot be independent even of one another, and certainly we are not independent of God: for, when we have health and strength we ar: dependent upon him for their continuance; and if we havi thenx not, we are dependent on him to restore them to us. In all matters whatsoever it is sweet, it is blessed, to see the tokens of his watchful care. If I had a th.ing of which I could say, “God has not given me this,” I hope, by Divine grace, I should turn it out of doors. Food, raiment, uealth, breath, strength, every thing, cometh from him, and we are coi-.stantly dependent upon him. As Huntingdon used to say, “My God gives me a hand-basket portion. He does not give me an abundance at once; but he gives it basket by basket, and I live fi-om hand to mouth.” Or, as old Hardy once said, “I am a gentleman commoner on the bounty of God; I live day bj day upon morning commons and evening commons. And thua I am dependent upon him, independent of the world, but dependent upon God.” The sheep is a dependent thing, always
80 Tnic GOOD siiErnEUi).
needing some help; and so is the Christian; and he realizes the blessedness of bis dey)eiidence when lie can say, in the words of my text, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
These are the two principal points upon which we v’ew this with regard to providence. I might wander from what I wished to be the subject of this evening; and I might be doing good if I were to show you some other points of conv parison between the Christian and the sheep. O beloved! there are some of you here present who know yourselves to be sheep by reason of your frequent wanderings. How often have we made this confession, “We have erred and straj’ed from thy wnyi like lost sheep,” and we do feel it this night, bitterly rueing the waywardness of our hearts. But it is well to be the sheep ot God’s pasture, even if we have been wandering sheep. We do not read of wandering dogs, because dogs are naturally wild, while sheep are always accounted to be some one’s property. The straying sheep has an owner, and how ever far it may stiay from the fold, it ceases not to belong to that owner. I believe that God will yet bring back into the fold every one of his own sheep, and they shall all be saved. It is something to feel our wanderings, for if we feel ourselves to be lost, we shall certainly be saved; if we feel ourselves Vo have wandered, we shall certainly be brought back.
Again, we are just like sheep by reason of the perverseness of our wills. Peoj)lo talk about free-will Christians, and tell us of persons being saved and coming to God of their own free will. It is a very curious thing, but though I have heard a great many free-will sermons, I nevei- heard any free will prayers. I have heard Arminianisni in preaching and talking, but I have never heard any Arminian devotion. In fact, I do not think there can be any prayer of the sort. It is a style that does not suit prayer. The theory may look very nice in argument, and sound very proper in discourse, though we somewhat differ from it; but for practical purposes it is nseless. The language will not suit in prayer, and this alone would be sufficient reason to condemn it. If a man can not pray in the spu’it of his own convictions, it shews they are a
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delusion fiom beginning to end, for if they were true he could pray in that language as avcU as in any other. Blessed ha God! the doctrines of grace are as good to pray with as to jircach with. We do not find ourselves out of order in any act of worship when once we have the old fundamental dectrines of the blessed gospel of grace. Persons talk about free-will Christians coming back to Jesus of themselves. I intend to believe them when they find me a free-will sheep that has come back of itself; when they have discovered some sheep after it has gone from its fold stand bleating at its master’s door to be taken in again. You will not find such a thing, and you will not find a free-will Christian just yet, for they will all confess if you thoroughly probe the matter, that it was grace, grace alone that restored therr souls —
“Grace taught our souls to pray,
And made our eyes o’erflow;
‘Tls grace that keeps us to this day,
And will not let us go.”
Not to pause longer on the threshold, let us proceed to the text itself. The two things which I have explained to you we must feel before we can realize the pith of the matter are these — our own folly and our entire dependence upon the providence of God.
n. The next thing is, the assukance — how are we able to see that the Lord is our shepherd? It is very easy to say the Lord is a shepherd; but how shall we appropriate the blessedness to ourselves — the Lord is our shepherd? I answer that he hath had certain dealings with our souls hi the last which have taught us that he is our shepherd. If every man and every woman in this assembly to-night should rise up and say, “The Lord is nay shepherd,” I feel convinced it would be in many instances the solemn utterance of an untruth; for there are, it is to be feared, many here who have not God for their shepherd. He is their guide, it is true, in some sense, because he overrules all the hearts and controls all the affairs of the children of men; but they are not the people of his pasture, they are not the sheep of his hand; they do not believe, therefore they are not of his fold. And if some of you should say that you are, your own conscience pvonld belie you. How, then, does a man come to know that the Lord is his Shepherd?
He knows it, ^Vsi, because Jesus Christ has brought him back from his wanderings. If there be any one here who alter a course of folly and sin has been brought from the mountains of error and the haunts of evil; if there be one here who has been stopped in a mad career of vice, and has been reclaimed by the power of Jehovah Jesus, such a one will know by a happy experience that the Lord is his shepherd. If I once wandered on yon mountain top, and Jesus climbed up and caught me, and put me on his shoulders, and carried me homo, I can not and dare not doubt that he is my shepherd. If I had belonged to some other sheeiD-owner he would not have sought me. And from the fact that he did seek I learn that he must be my shepherd. Did I think any man convinced me of sin, or that any human power had converted me, I should fear I was that man’s sheep and that he was my shepherd. Could I trace my deliverance to the hand of a creature, I should think that some creature might be my shepherd; but, since he who has been reclaimed of God mubt and will confess that God alone has done it, and will ascribe to his free grace, and to that alone, his deliverance from sin, such a one wdll feel persuaded that the Lord must be his sliopherd, because he brought him, he delivered him, he snatched him out of the jaw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear. Such is the first token of the shepherd’s care which we receive at the hand of the Lord.
We know still further, that like a shepherd he has supplied our wants. Some of you, beloved, know of a surety that God is your provider. You have been brought sometimes into such straits that if it had not been for an interposition of Heaven itself you never could have had deliverance. You have simk 80 deep down into poverty, and lovers and acquaintance have stood so far aloof from you, that you know there is but one arm which could have fetched you up. You have been reduced perhaps to such straits that all you could do was to pray
TiiK GOOD siii:rin:i:i). 83
Fou have wrestled :it the llirone, and sought for an answer, but it has not come; you have used every effort to extricate yourself, and still darkness has compassed your path. Again and again you have tried, till hope has well nigh vanished from your heart, and then, adding vows to your prayer, you have said in agony, “O God, if thou wilt deliver me this time I will never doubt thee again.” Look back on the paths oi your pilgrimage. Some of you can count as many Ebenezers as there are milestones fiora here to York; Ebenezers piled up, with oil poured on the top of them; places where you have said, “Hitherto the Lord hath helped me.” Look through the pages of your diary, and you will see time after time, when your perils and exigencies were such as no earthly skill coid relieve, and joix felt constrained to witness what others among you have never felt — you felt that there is a God, that there is a Piovidence — “a God who compasseth your path,” and “is acquainted with all your ways.” You have received deliverance in so marvelous a way, from so unseen a hand, and so unlikely a source, under circumstances, perhaps, so foreign to your wishes, and yet the deliverance has been so perfect, so complete, and wonderful, that you have been obliged to say, “The Lord is my shepherd.” Yes; he is. The sheep, we know, fed day by day in good pasture, may forget its shcv herd; but if for a time it is taken from the pasture, and then brought home again, after having been nearly starved, it says, “Truly, he is my shepherd,” If I had always been supplied with bread, without the pinch of anxiety, I might have doubted whether he had given it, and ascribed it to the ordinary course of passing events; but, seeing that “everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to aboimd and to suffer need,” I own that it is “my God who sup])lies ail my need;” yea, and with gratitude I will write it down for a certainty, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
But, beloved, do not be distressed, even though yrvu should not have had these particular trials and deliverances, for there is a way Avbereby we can tell that the Lord is our shepherd without encountering so many rough and rugged passes, as 1 will show you presently. I have heard ‘it said by some, that
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a man can not be a child of God unless he has gone through a certam set of trials and troubles. I recollect hearing a sermon fi-om these words, “Passing through the valley of Baca, they make it a well.” Certainly the preacher did not make his sermon a well, for it was as dry as a stick, and not wort’’ hearing. There was nothing like cheerfulness in it; but a Hood of declamation all the way through against hopeful Christians, against people going to heaven who are not always grumbling, and murmuring, and doubting; fumbling for their evidences amid the exercises of their own hearts; ever reading and striving to rival Job and Jeremiah in grief, taking the Lamentations as the fit expression of their Own lips, troubling tyeir poor brains, and vexing their poor hearts and smarting, and crying, and wearying themselves with the perpetual habit of complaining against God, saying, “My stroke is heavier than my groaning.” Such persons measure themselves by their troubles, and trials, and distresses, and tribulations, and perplexities, and no end of these things that we will not stop to recount. We believe, indeed, that such things will come to a child of God; we think every Christian will be corrected in due measure; we should be the last to deny that God’s people are a tried people. They must all pass through the furnace of affliction, and he has chosen them there; but still we believe that religion is a blessed and a happy thing, and we love to sing that verse: —
‘The men of grace have found
Heaven begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground,
From faith and hope do grow.”
lnd what though some of my hearers have not yet had to riwim through the rivers, though they may not have had to pass through the fiery furnace of providential trial — they have had trials enough, and tiials that no heart has known except their own, sufferings which they could not tell to flesh and blood, which have gnawed their very souls and entered into the marrow of their spirits; bittei- anguish and aching voids Bucli as those who boast about their trials never felt, euch as
ThE GOOD SIIKl’HKRO. 85
mere babbling troublcrs dlcl never know, deep rushings of the Btream of woe with which little bubbling narrow brooks could never conij)are. Such persons fear to murmur, they can not tell their sulVerings, because they think .t would be showing some want of trust in God; they keep their triaJ.s to themselves, and only tell them hito that ear which heareth and hath no lips to babble afterward. “But,” you say, “how can you tell the Lord is your shepherd if you have not been tried in any ol those great deeps?” We know that he is, because he has fed us day by day in good pasture. And if he has not sullered us to wander so tar away as others, we can lift up our eyes and say, “Lord, thou art my shepherd; I can as fully prove that thou art my she])lK’rd by thy keeping me in the grassy lie Id, as by thy fetching me back when I have wandered; I know thou art as much my shepherd when thou hast supplied my wants day by day as if thou hadst sufiered me to go into poverty and given me bitterness; I know thou art as much ray shepherd when granting me a continual stream of mercy, as if that stream had stopped for a moment and then began again.” Persons say if they have had an accident, and been nearly killed, or have narrowly escaped, “What a providence!” Why, it is as much a providence when you have no accident at all. A good man once went to a place to meet his son. Both his son and himself had ridden from some distance. When the son arrived he exclaimed, “0! fathei-, I had such a providence on the road.” “Why, what was that?” “My horse stumbled six times, and 1 was not thrown down and killed.” “Dear me!” said his father, “but I have had a providence too.” “And what was that?” “Why, my horse never stumbled at all, and that is just as much a providence as if the horse had stumbled six times, and I had not been thrown down.” Well, you know it is a great providence when you Lave lost your property, and God provides for you; but it is quite as much a providence when you have no loss at all, and when you are still able to live above the depths of penury and so God provides for you. I say this to some of you whom God has blessed from your earliest youth, and continually y;rovided foj’; you, too, can say,” The Lord is my shepherd;’•
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you can see it stamped on your raei’cics; though they come daily, they are given you of God; and you will say, by humble faith, the word “y/«^” as loud as any one of tliera. “The Lord is my shepherd.” Do not get despising the little ones because they have not had so many trials as you have. You preat stcwdard men, do not get cutting the children of G d in pieces because they have not been in such lights as you have. The master leads the sheep where he pleases, and be sure he will k’ad them rightly; and as long as they can say the word “my,” do not trouble yourselves where they learned it — if they can say from their hearts, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
III. Now, we finish up with the holt confidence of the blessed Psalmist: “I shall not want — I am sure I shall not Avant.” There poor unbelief says, “I am wanting in everything, I am wanting in spirituals, I am wanting in temyorals; and I shall want. Ah! such distress as I had a little while ago. You can not tell what it was; it was enough to break one’s heart. And it is coming again; I shall want.” That is very good, unbelief, but you must write your owu name at the bottom, and then I will repeat to you this, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” That is what David said, and I think David’s faith rather preferable to your unbelief after all. I take your evidence in some matters, but I really would not take it before David’s. I would accept your testimony as an honest man in some respects, but I thhik the words of inspiration are rather preferable to your words of apprehension. When I find it written, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” I would rather take one of David’s affirmations than fifty of your negations. Methinks I hear some one saying, “I would bear the want of any temporal good, if I could but obtain spiritual blessings. I am in want this night of more faith, more love, more holiness, more communion with my Saviour.” Well, beloved, the Lord is thy shepherd; thou shalt not want even these; if thou askest of him, he will give them to thee, though it may be by terrible things in righteousness that he will save thee. He often answers his people in an unexpected manner j most of Gocfa
THE GOOD SUEPUERD. 8^
answers to our letters come down in black envelopes; ) et, maik you, they will come. If you want peace, joy, sanctificatJou, and such like things, they shall be given to you, for God hath promised them. The Lord is your shepherd, you shall not ant. I have otlen thought of the lai-ge pi-omis« written in the Bible — I do not know where there is a largeione — “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” “No good thing!” It is a mercy that the word “good” was put in, for if it said, “nothing,” we should have been asking for many things that would be bad for us; but it says, “no good thing 1” Now, spiritual mercies are good things, and not only good things, but the best things, so that you may well ask for them; for if no good thing will be withholden, much more will none of the best thhigs. Ask, then, Christian, for he is thy shepherd, and thou shalt not want; he will supply thy need; he will give thee whatever thou requirest; ask in faith, nothing doubting, and he shall give thee what thou wilt, according to thy desires. But still there are” some who say, “The text applies to temporal matters,” and persist in it. Well, then, I will accept this sense — the Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want. “Ah!” cries one, “I was once in afliuence, and now I am brought down to penury. I once stood among the mighty and was rich, now I walk among the lowly and am poor.” Well, it does not say, “The Lord is your shepherd, and you shall not come down ia society;” it does not say, “The Lord is your shepherd, and therefore you shall have five hundred or a thousand pounds a year;” it does not say, “The Lord is your shepherd, and thercfoie you shall have whatsoever your soul lustcth after.” All it says is, “The Lord is your shepherd, and you shall not want.” There are different ways of wanting. There are many people whose foolish craving and restless anxiety mabie theai always in want. If you gave them a house to live m, and fed them day by day, they would always be wanting. And after you had just relieved their necessities, they would want still. The fact is, theirs are not real wants, but simply iancied wants. It does not say, “The Lord is my shepherd, therefore I shall not fancy I want;” for, though God might promise it, it avouUI need his omnipotence to oanj it oui: for his people often get fancying that they A“ant, whea they do not. It is real wants that are referi-ed to.” The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not really want.” There ai“e many things we wish for that we do not want, hut there is no promise given that we shall have all we wish for. God hath not said that he would give us anything more than the bread or the water: “Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure;” and he has not broken tljat promise yet, has he? So, lift up thy head, and do not be afraid. Fear not, thy God is with thee; he shall pi-event evil from hurting thee; he shall turn darkness into light, and bitter into sweet. All the way he hath led thee, and all the way he shall lead thee; this shall be thy constant joy. He is my shepherd, I shall not really want that which is absolutely necessary. Whatever I really require shall be given by the lavish hand of a tender father. BeUever, here is thy jointure, here is thine inheritance, hero is thine income, here is thy yearly living: “He is thy shepherd, and thou shalt not want.” What is thy income, believer? “Why,” you say, “it is dificreut with some and others of us.” Well, but a believer’s income is still the same This is it: “The Lord is ray shepherd, I shall not M’ant.” That is my income, and it is yours, poor little one. That is the income of the yoorest jjauper in the workhouse who hath an interest in the grace of God. The Lord is her shepherd, she shall not
want: that is the income of the poor foundling child that has to come to know the Lord in early life, and hath no other friend. The Lord is her shepherd, she shall not want: that is the widow’s inheritance. The Lord is her shepherd, she shall not want: that is the orphan’s fortune. The Lord is his shepherd, he shall not want: that is the believer’s portion, his inheritance, his blessing,
“Well now,” some may say, “but what is it worth?” Beloved, if we could now change away this promise for a world of gold, we would not; we had rather live on this promise than live on the finest fortiuie in creation. We reckon that this is an inheritance that makes us rich indeed! “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Give me ten thousanr’
THE GOOD SUETIIKRD. 8*
pounds, and one reverse of fortune may scatter it all away; but let me have a spiritual hold of this lJiline assurance — “The Lord is my she])herd, I shall hot want” — then I am all right — I am set up for life. I can not break with such stock as this in hand. I never can be a baidcrupt. for I hold this security — “The Lord is uiy shepherd, I shiill not want.” Do not give me ready money now; give me a cheque-book, and let me draw what I like. This is what God does with the believer. Lie does not immediately transfer his inheritance to him, but lets him draw what he needs out of the riches of his fullness in Christ Jesus. The Lord is his shei)herd, he shall not want. What a glorious inheritance! Walk up and down it. Christians; lie down upon it, it will do for thy pillow; it will be soft as down for thee to lie upon. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Climb up that creaking staircase to the top of thy house, lie down on thy hard mattrass, wrap thyself round with a blanket, look out for the winter when hard times are coming, and say, “What shall I do?” But, then, just hum over to thyself these words, “The Lord is ray shepherd, I shall not want.” That will be like the hush of a lullaby to your poor soul, and you will soon sink to slumber. Go, thou business man, to thy counting-house again, after this little hour of recreation in God’s house, again to cast up those wearisome books. Thou art saying, “How about business? These prices may be my ruin. What shall I do V” When thou hast cast up thine accounts, put this down against all thy fears, and see what a balance it will leave — “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” There is another man. He does not lack anything, but still lie feels that some great loss may injure him coiisidei’ably. Go and write this down in thy cash-book. If thou hast made out thy cash-account truly, put this down: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;” put that down lor something better than pounds, shillings and pence, something better than gold and silver. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” “Ah 1” says the cold, calculating man, “your promise is not worth having, sir.” No; it would not, if it w-ere my promise. But fortunately it is not. It is God’s i)iouiisc. It
90 THE GOOD SIIKPnERD.
is only my promise if God has given it to me. It has nothing to do with you. He that disregards it knows nothing about it, but he who apprehends it says, “Ah! yes! it is true, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’” He will find this promise like Chian M’iiie of wdiich the ancients said it wa? flavored to the lip of him that tasted it. The promise shall taste sweec to thee if thy palate is pure; yet it shall be worth nothing to thee but mere froth if thy taste is not healthy.
But, beloved, we must divide our congregation before we send you away, and remind you that there are some of you to whom this does not belong. Perhaps some of you professors of religion may want this promise badly enough; but it is not yours. The Lord is not your shepherd; you are not the sheep of his pasture, and the flock of his hand. You are not those who have gone astray; you are not sheep, but goats — unclean creatures, not harmless, and undeiiled as sheep; but everything that is the very reverse. Oh! it is not only eternal loss, it is not only everlasting injury that you have to regret — it is present loss, it is present injury; the loss of a jointure on earth, the loss of an inheritance below. To lose this promise here on earth, — this were like a temporary hell. To be deprived of such a comfort and promise as this is a terrible privation. Oh! it is enough to make men long for religion if it were only for that sweet placidity and calm of mind which it giveth here below. AVell might n.ien wish fov this heavenly oil to be cast on the troubled vraters of this mortal life, even if they did not anoint their heads therewith, and enter into glory with the joy of their Lord upon their countenance. Beloved, there are some I know here — and your conscience tells you that I mean youi’selves — who speak within your own hearts, and the voice now says, “I am none of his sheep.” Well then, there is no promise for you that you shall not want; for you there is no help, there is no providence. The pi-onaise and the providence are for believers, and not for you. There is no word that all things shall work together for your good; but rather, cursed shalt thou bo in thy basket and cursed in thy store, cursed in the field, cursed in thy house, and curs(><l in thy goings out, and cursed in thy iomings in, for “the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked.” It doth not puop in at his window, but it is in hla house. Yet God “blesseth tlic habitation of the righteous.” The curse shall follow you until your dyhig day; and not having him for your shepherd, you shall wander where that Hungry wolf the devil shall at last seize upon your soul, and everlasting misery and destruction from the presence of Jehovah must be your inevitable, miserable, and inexjiressibly awful doom. May the Lord in mercy deliver you from it! And this is the way of salvation: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” “He that believeth and is baptized” — we omit nothing that God has said. “He that believeth and is bajp tized” — not he that is baptized and believeth (which were to reverse God’s order). “He that believeth and is baptized” — not he that is baptized without believing, but the two joined together. He that believeth with his heart and is baptized, confessing with his mouth — “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Do you neglect one part of it? It is at your peril, sir! “He that believeth and is bay)tized,” #Ays God. If any of you have neglected one portion of it, if you have believed and have not been baptized, God shall save you. Still this promise saith not so. “He that believeth and is baptized;” it says the two together; and “what God hath joined together let no man put asunder;” what he hath ordered let no man disarrange. “He that believes” — that is, lie that trusts in Jesus; he that relies upon his blood, liia merits, and his righteousness — “and is baptized, shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.”